Deduct, To Subtract
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: Summer and winter and somehow they'd managed to miss spring. Post LLV.


Maybe it would have been better if he'd hit her; maybe it would have been better if he'd been a bad man, someone either physically or verbally abusive. It might have been better if he'd embezzled, stalked, used her, kept her at a distance. If he'd been a despicable man, a horrible human being, maybe she could have forgiven his actions. If he'd been terrible and awful and disgusting, she would have been able to rationalize his leaving.

But to keep her as he had, tucked in and safe and oblivious to his true thoughts and feelings, that was worse she thought. Maybe if he hadn't loved her, it would have been okay. Perhaps if he'd given a fraction of himself and taken it right away it would have been fine.

If she didn't know what he felt like inside of her, if she didn't know what it was like to have her heart break from the amount of passion and purpose he felt for her, she thought that for some reason that would have been better. Sara knew the tremor of his tears as he laid in her arms and she knew how she trembled against him as she did the same.

Maybe if he hadn't been the one man she'd ever really felt the need to want…

It was around the first time he'd kissed her that she'd come to believe that he really did think she was beautiful, something special to someone. The way he breathed over her face, the subtle way in which he quivered as his top lip glided over hers. The way his hands curled and held in her hair, Sara thought she was beautiful. In his arms, she could feel herself, heat and shine. When his lips had gently taken refuge against hers, he turned her into something she couldn't define. Sara, new and different and gorgeous.

As his tongue touched hers she realized she wanted the pleasant buzzing in her head to drown out all of her better thoughts forever. Sara couldn't think when she was kissing him, couldn't rationalize. She knew him, so she thought, finally knew him like she wished to.

Presumption was her downfall she assumed, presuming she knew so well what she had and what she wouldn't if he were to leave. And when he up and decided to do just that, she wasn't sure what she was losing and what she could afford to cling to and keep.

"Tell me about Massachusetts," he'd asked her one morning, his back to hers, voice a raspy plea and she'd stiffened at the tone and cadence. The sheets were tucked around her breast but she pulled them up to her chin and slid down towards the end of the bed and asked him in kind, 'What about Massachusetts?'

After a deep swallow and a shallow breath she'd told him about the snow and the people, the liberalism, the foliage and the scent of pine in winter. Mostly she talked of snow and how it smelled, how it slid against the inside of her

lungs and made her feel alive. Sara spoke of people who walked fast, but looked to the sky instead of at the buildings in front of them; Sara spoke of high octane coffee, good music, theater and wide open spaces that-unlike Nevada-were cropped by large birch trees and fluffy clouds.

Rolling towards her as her voice tinted with wistful longing, he pressed his lips to the side of her neck, felt her as she spoke. She knew he was going to go, so there was no point in attempting to keep him with her words. Speaking the truth, Sara felt his mouth, felt as his lips went slack as he trailed into what she could only hope was a barren, dreamless sleep.

Glaring at him in sleep, she felt foolish and betrayed, completely and hopelessly fallen.

Equal parts of her emotions were devoted to wanting him to remain and needing him to leave, for sanity's sake.

There was much more on the line for them at this point in their lives; Sara had never really thought about the less-than-happy ending, the rock bottom outcome. She'd never thought about what would happen if they really didn't work out. She'd never admitted to herself that no matter how much two people loved each other, that they just didn't work together. She was fairly sure that neither of them had taken even a moment to consider the after as she didn't even think they'd completed the 'before' portion of the relationship.

Tongue around her ear as he whispered to her his intentions, no room for discussion, just a blunt statement as he slipped his thigh between hers, willing her to grind down onto it.

When he got back, she would still be in his bed, though not with her thighs parted as she was weeks ago. When he got back, Sara would be waiting in his bed, waiting for him to remember how to hold her, waiting for him to decide if he even wanted to.

Thought got the better of her and she realized that though his breath skimming the hollow of her throat was one of the best sensations that she had ever experienced, that she could live without it. That she could be beautiful without him.

When he left there was a bitter drip down the back of her throat and she had to swallow and cringe. Uncertainty, certain uncertainty that he'd left in his wake took up residence on her tongue and deep in her chest and she tried to breathe it out. Her heart wasn't breaking, she wasn't sure that it was still in her chest. Maybe, maybe he'd taken it with him when he'd slipped out the open door.

Bile rose and she swallowed, tilted her chin and took a deep breath; brave, nothing changed, she would face shift and whatever came afterwards and not fall into his pillow and inhale just to remind herself that she'd had him.

She couldn't help it, he was riding off into his own sunset and she was left with all of the maybes.

He was in winter while she was scorching in summer.

And he was blooming while she was dying.


End file.
